Navy releases six months of court-martial results

Jul. 22, 2013 - 06:00AM
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The list

The Navy released the results of 135 special and general courts-martial — every one convened by the service from January through June — on Monday, the first data released in what will be a running tally of such results designed to increase “transparency” in the fleet’s judicial system.

Each item includes the alleged offender’s paygrade, the charges the offender faced, the location of the court-martial and the decision reached — including penalties, if any. Guilty and not-guilty verdicts are included, but names of the accused and dates of the trials are not. Summary courts-martial also are not included.

The Navy announced Thursday that it would begin posting a running tally of court-martial results on the Navy and Marine homepages; the January-to-June list was published as an attachment to a news release that was listed as a Navy News Service “top story” on the Navy.mil homepage as of Monday afternoon.

A Navy official said Thursday that the move would “increase transparency of the department’s criminal proceedings” and would include cases involving sexual assault. The Navy’s top official said the tally would be part of wide-ranging efforts to curb sex assault in the fleet.

“This department is committed to using all available resources to prevent this crime, aggressively investigate allegations and prosecute as appropriate,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said Thursday in a statement announcing the changes. “We will not hide from this challenge — we will be active, open and transparent.”